What a great interview with Patricia Barker! The dancer's humanity and all those 'fun facts' have a way of coming out in these interviews. For example, I didn't know Ms. Barker was intimately invovled in the BK Dancewear line. Also, she identifies with NYCB former dancer Diana Adams. I guess she's done some of Ms. Adams' roles when they've been reconstructed at PNB. This gives more depth to our appreciation and understanding of the individual dancers.

If you haven't re-visited the above interviews since this weekend, check them out again. We've got a chockful more photos for your enjoyment, including this gem:<P> <P>PS - If you don't see the new images in the interview pages, click REFRESH or RELOAD on your browser.

What a fabulous picture of Patricia Barker!<BR>Speaking of which, does anyone know when her dancewear line's website launches? Every so often I check her website but it looks like it's not ready yet: <A HREF="http://www.bkwear.com/" TARGET=_blank>http://www.bkwear.com/</A> <p>[This message has been edited by mehunt (edited July 01, 2002).]

It was something that was always in my life. My older sister took ballet classes when I was young and from early on I was doing Scottish dance and creative movement and then it snowballed; once you get started you can’t stop. I always loved dancing and music and for me it’s not so much about technique, it’s the fact that moving to music is so liberating. It’s wonderful and I get paid to do it!

So how did you start with PNB?

I’d been going to summer programmes with them since the age of 11, so it was a natural evolution for me. I knew it was where I wanted to get a job as a dancer, but I’m a Canadian citizen and I knew that would be a problem. PNB had always accepted me and involved me in “The Nutcracker” when they came to Vancouver and so on. Whereas I’d never been accepted at any Canadian programmes, as they’d say I was too tall or too whatever. So it seemed very natural for me to go to PNB and they worked hard to make it possible.

It has always seemed to me that PNB has a high proportion of tall dancers?

Yes, but you know it changes so much from year to year. Now the Company is so much shorter than it used to be. When I first joined I was considered a short dancer, now I’m somewhere in between.

Tell me about the early part of your career?

Looking back I got tremendous opportunities when I was first in the Company. They had to push me because of my visa and I moved faster than if I had been an American citizen, as they needed to see what I was capable of doing and if I would fit in. It was good for me and created a desire in me to come back. However, I was never confident that I would be able to stay and in the end the circumstances with the visa made it so difficult that I left and joined Ballet British Columbia. I was lucky to get a job, but it made me angry that I’d had to leave.

I spent two seasons with Ballet BC and learned a tremendous amount. They rarely do pointe shoe work and have a great rep with pieces by Kylian and Forsythe. But all the while in the back of my mind I wanted to go back to PNB. So whenever I got a good review I’d send it to PNB right away and off-season I’d be in Seattle staying with friends and taking Company class and basically in their face.

After two years at Ballet BC, I told them that I was really grateful for what I had learned, but that a number of things were getting to me and I decided I had to leave, even though I didn’t have a job to go to. Then next day out of the blue, when I was at a barbecue, I got a call from Francia asking me what I was doing and would I like to come down and see them. Right off I said, “I’m there!” So I took classes for a few days and then a job offer came for me from the Royal Winnipeg. When I told Kent and Francia they said, “We’d like to hire you as a Soloist.” It was so amazing after all the trauma and it was so great to be back.

Since you’ve been back have there been landmark roles for you?

One that immediately comes to mind is “Jardi Tancat” [ed. choreographed by Nacho Duato]. As I mentioned earlier I learned a tremendous amount when I was at Ballet BC and I strongly believe that if I hadn’t had that opportunity I would not know how to do certain things. When “Jardi” was first set on PNB it was all Principal dancers apart from me, but it was clear that I understood that type of movement. I do a wide range including classical stuff as well as the modern and that suits me. I would find it boring to do the same type of movement all the time.

On the question of performing a wide range of work, some traditionalists argue that ballet companies shouldn’t be performing these modern works. They raise issues such as a dilution of expertise in classical ballet and risk of injury. What’s your view?

There may be some truth in those arguments. But there is so much more to explore with your musicality and your physicality and how your weight can be different. I find it very interesting to be exposed to modern work and it’s a way to grow and also makes your classical ballet better. It’s important for audiences too to get a variety of work. Although some just want to see classical, many want to see stuff like “In the Middle”.

There’s also a lot of discussion about the balance between technique and artistry these days with the increased importance of competitions like Jacksonville. Do you think the balance has gone too far in the technique direction?

I think there are two kinds of dancers. There are some that are cut out for the competition aspect of dance. However I’m not sure what the point of that is and it was never a path I took. I find the approach of how many pirouettes can you do and how long can you hold this balance, a bit freakish. Personally that’s not what I go to the ballet for and I don’t understand the motivation for it.

Were you here in London on the last tour?

Yes, with “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, one of my favourites. The orchestra was tremendous and we had the kids from the PNB School who always steal the show.

What pieces are you scheduled to dance this week?

I’m expecting a baby, so I’m doing less than I would have otherwise. I’m doing “Jardi” and all my roles in “Silver Lining”, but I was down for “Fearful Symmetries” and maybe “Divertimento”. I haven’t been feeling well, so it’s better that I don’t do too much. “Fearful Symmetries” is a great, explosive work and I think the audience here will like it, but it is very hard work.

So looking to the future, what are your plans?

First and foremost it’s the baby of course and then I’d like to come back. We’re opening a new theatre and that would be in the season that I returned. And we end that season with “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which would be a great incentive for me to come back to work. At the moment my horizons are short term because of the baby and very exciting at the same time. As for dancing, I want to keep evolving and experimenting and learning new work. I don’t want to settle, because then it’s lost all its intrigue for me.

And when you stop being a dancer?

You know I’m torn in a couple of directions. One thing I would love to be involved in later is psychology, although I would take a lot of schooling. Young dancers struggle with confidence and don’t get a lot of support. So I’d like to be like the people who work in Sport telling young people, “You can do it.” The other route is working for myself in a small business, but I don’t have any illusions that it’s going to be really tough. As dancers we expect a certain standard of excellence and we have to adjust to the fact that we won’t achieve the same level in other areas for a long time. For the time being I’ve started studying again in preparation for whatever route I take.

What view of PNB would the Company like London audiences to have?

It would be obvious to come and bring a Balanchine rep, but I admire the courage to bring a diverse rep trying to show that the Company is able to do a lot more than one particular thing. Some people may criticise us, but some are always going to be unhappy. Francia and Kent are always bold with touring programmes and when we went to the East Coast we took some 12 ballets. I think people should enjoy us for what we are.

Always. My mother told me that as soon as I could talk all I said was, “When I grow up I want to be a dancer.” She was very confused, because nobody in my family had ever taken ballet or any kind of dance. Then when I was seven I started taking ballet/tap combo 1 in New Jersey where we lived and at 13 I went to the School of American Ballet in New York and I’ve just loved ballet ever since.

In the UK, because of image problems it has been very difficult to get boys to do dance. Was it a problem for you?

No, because my family were so supportive from day one. Of course sometimes it was hard at school and some schoolboys could be jerky, but it never bothered me. I just thought, “You have no idea.” I’ve just seen “Billy Elliott” for the first time and loved it. The ending is so awesome.

Do you have any strong memories from SAB?

Having Peter Boal as a teacher, but they were all great. I had Stanley Williams before he passed away and he was an amazing teacher. I also learnt a lot from Jock Soto about partnering. Of course it was all based around Balanchine technique and style. So for summer programmes I would go to ABT, which is the complete opposite of SAB, and balance it out myself and see what I liked from both. I didn't go there, but the PNB School also teaches a more general classical American combination of Balanchine and other styles.

New York City Ballet seems to do so many ballets each year, even if you take account of the triple bills. Did you get preparation for that at SAB?

The School was always pushing you hard to take as many classes as you could each day to build up your stamina. They would say to us, “If you think this is hard, wait until you’re in the Company!” There is nothing like being in that Company and I don’t know how they manage with all those performances. I love it at PNB where we have two week seasons and time to prepare. But I also love to go home to New Jersey and see NYCB and all my friends and I think the dancers are awesome at the moment.

You did some guesting with other companies before PNB.

When I was still at SAB I danced with a small company in New York run by Francis Patrelle and that was such good experience and he created a role for me in “The Nutcracker” and gave me a lot of performance experience, which you don’t get so much at SAB. At the PNB School they have the professional division who get to understudy the corps roles in the bigger ballets. We use those students a lot and it’s a great experience for them. I also danced with San Francisco Opera in “Death in Venice”.

Tell me about joining PNB.

Getting in was very exciting. I hadn’t auditioned for any companies and SAB wanted me to stay another year. I was doing a ballet class during the summer programme and I was told that Francia was coming to look at me, but she didn’t show up. Kent showed up, but I didn’t know he was there. Then I saw him standing there in the doorway and thought that maybe they would come and see me tomorrow. He introduced himself to me and then said, “I want to offer you a contract.” I nearly passed out and two weeks later I was there at 18.

Everybody is awesome and it feels like one big family. You get support from everybody and Francia and Kent are so nurturing. They push you and they support you. It’s such a great company. I joined as a New Dancer for a year and then I was in the Corps for three years and I’ve just been promoted to a Soloist.

Was there a particular breakthrough role for you?

In my first year I had performed the corps roles in various ballets and nine parts in Kent’s “Nutcracker”. Then the last rep was “Silver Lining” and I had two principal roles, so that was very exciting and so much fun. I’m doing one of them here, “Pick Yourself Up”, which is great. After that they gave me so many things to dance. I got to do “In the Middle”, Bluebird in “Sleeping Beauty”, and they would say things like, “Come and learn Oberon in “Dream”. So it’s been incredible. Doing all the different roles makes you a better dancer.

Have you toured with the Company before?

This is my third in fact. My first year we went to Istanbul and Hong Kong. But it is my first time in London and I’m really excited. I went to Sadler’s Wells yesterday for class and it’s such a great theatre. I haven’t seen the stage yet, but the dressing rooms and studios are awesome.

What are you performing in this week?

I’m in every show. In “Silver Lining” I’ll do “The Edinboro Wiggle” with Kaori Nakamura. We also danced “Bluebird” and I was so nervous to dance with her, as she is unbelievable. I’ll also do “Pick Yourself Up”. Then in the Mixed Bill I have two parts. The first is a soloist part with two other boys, which is so much fun, and the third principal couple part on Thursday and Friday. I love that ballet; it has great music that everyone wants to choreograph to and it’s great to dance to as well. The rep has something for everyone with from a tutu ballet to Jardi Tancat.

We had a run through on an island off Seattle before we came and that was where Julie [Tobiason] had her injury. I saw her coming off stage and she went straight to the physical therapy table. In two seconds Francia and Kent were backstage and it was scary for everyone. Then we found out she had broken a bone in her foot and wouldn’t be able to come to London for her final performances with the Company. But she’s tough. She’s getting married soon and she was talking about how she is going to decorate her boot! We have a connection as we both come from Jersey.

This will be the end of the season for PNB. What are you doing in the summer?

I’m going to Cancun [in Mexico] for vacation. Then I’ll be in New Jersey visiting my family and going into New York every day, looking at ballets and taking class at Steps. We start up again around the 12th August in a temporary arena while they rebuild the Opera House. We switched over there in January and it’s working fine.

So what are your dreams?

I’m really excited right now to be a Soloist and I hope that one day I’ll be a Principal. I just hope things keep going the way they have been; it’s been great.

Any particular roles you’d love to do?

Everything. I want to do everything. There’s a lot of ballets that I have favourite parts in, such as The Dreamer in “Opus 19” by Jerome Robbins. When I was at SAB we used to go to the ballet every night and Peter Boal used to do that. It was just incredible. I’m lucky that I’ve already done some of my dream roles like “Agon”. “In the Middle” is such a different experience; it’s about you, the music and the other dancers. It’s such a fun feeling to walk around the stage and look at each other. It’s a great ballet and one of my favourites. Some of the Princes would be great but I think I’m still too young right now.

What about after dance or is that too far ahead?

No, I do look that far out. There will always be ballet for me. I’d love to teach, and to choreograph. I choreographed a ballet at SAB, which was a lot of fun and they’re still doing it. If I could direct a company one day that would be incredible

I enjoyed reading the interviews. I didn't know Poretta danced with the SF Opera. That's cool. Both him and Dickson are among my favorite dancers at PNB... Actually, I like 'em all. It's hard to choose favorites!

It was something that was always in my life. My older sister took ballet classes when I was young and from early on I was doing Scottish dance and creative movement and then it snowballed; once you get started you can’t stop. I always loved dancing and music and for me it’s not so much about technique, it’s the fact that moving to music is so liberating. It’s wonderful and I get paid to do it!

Always. My mother told me that as soon as I could talk all I said was, “When I grow up I want to be a dancer.” She was very confused, because nobody in my family had ever taken ballet or any kind of dance. Then when I was seven I started taking ballet/tap combo in New Jersey where we lived and at 13 I went to the School of American Ballet (SAB) in New York and I’ve just loved ballet ever since.

It took some time to track down Stanko Milov. I was wandering around the warren of corridors backstage at Sadler’s Wells Theatre asking anyone that might conceivably be connected with PNB where I could find the principal dancer. Company members wondered how I had managed to miss him at the end of morning class. Milov is statuesque – well over six feet tall – and, according to Margo Spellman, PNB’s Marketing and PR Director, you definitely know when it is him coming down the corridor. It’s hard to walk quietly when you weigh 200 pounds, he has told her. Any fears that he was avoiding me quickly dispersed when I finally collided with the dancer. He has the charm and looks of an aristocratic Bulgarian – square jaw, high cheek bones and proud bearing – and the openness and affability of your average American. Deliciously glistening with post-class perspiration, he submitted willingly to my line of questioning.

Milov joined PNB in 1999 just after the company’s first tour to London. He trained at Bulgaria’s top ballet school, named somewhat confusingly the State Choreographic School, which feeds into the National Theatre for Opera and Ballet in Sofia in much the same way as the Royal Ballet School feeds into Covent Garden. It was a logical first step for a dancer of Milov’s quality to join the one major ballet company in Bulgaria. The standard of teaching is high in Sofia and, not surprisingly, Russian in inspiration. “It’s a very Vaganova method of training – very much Kirov Ballet - and really a mixture of Russian and French styles,” Milov believes. Teachers are specifically trained for their careers at a special university institution. If he had stayed in Sofia he would have been largely happy dancing the traditional, classical repertoire but Milov’s hunger to experiment brought him to the US. Only now is the Opera and Ballet Company acquiring a work by the choreographer most frequently used as a measure of progress: Balanchine. “I don’t even know which one it is – I just heard about it. But I was very excited by it since it’s at least some kind of progress,” the dancer enthuses.

Soon after graduating from ballet school Milov happened to be standing in the US Embassy in Sofia and clutching a recording of his dancing when a visiting choreographer from Pittsburgh took an interest in him. Pittsburgh Ballet Theater had a strong connection with the school and Milov had made no secret of his intention to get to the States. “I like many choreographers. I have been trained with the great classical ballets with a very Russian influence. And that’s why I went to the United States – because I also wanted to learn Jiri Kylian, Nacho Duato and ……things of this sort,” he explains. “I like a balance of the two – that’s the only way you can become a good and balanced dancer.” Added to that, as in many ex-Communist countries, underfunding has prompted many gifted dancers to go abroad. He was soon invited to join the Pittsburgh company by its then Artistic Director, the former New York City Ballet dancer, Patricia Wilde. He jumped ship in 1999 to join PNB. Co-Artistic Directors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell invited him to Seattle to dance Balanchine’s “Theme and Varitations” and he was immediately hooked on the company. “I saw that it was an amazing company. Pittsburgh was also a big company at the time but PNB was much more stable and much more recognised.”

So what does he think of his choice three years on? He’s content: Kent and Francia are “great people” and as a US citizen now, his future life is quite definitely going to be lived out in the States. “Kent and Francia are both the kind of people that create the nurturing environment that you enjoy being in.” He believes that this nurturing has made the company great and that: “ the greatness of a company is not only judged or gauged by the quality of its dancers – it’s important to have a good morale and very good atmosphere to work in. That’s what enticed me in the first place. It’s way too difficult to have to struggle, you know.” Plus he loves Seattle itself and believes: “we have one of the most beautiful cities in the world.” Of course, the other reason that he came to PNB was for the diverse repertory of the company. How does that square with the large number of Nutcrackers churned out by the company each year, I wonder? “Well of course there’s ‘The Nutcracker’. It’s a ‘must’ in America.” He is defensive but also self-mocking: “I know it’s nothing like that here [in the UK]. But there [Seattle] we have Nutcracker in June.” Of course, the average audience for ‘The Nutcracker’ is very different than for other ballets. “Nutcracker is Nutcracker and, as far as they are concerned, there is nothing else but Nutcracker.” That ‘The Nutcracker’ sustains the company financially is borne out by the figures. “That’s the way it is. It’s the moneymaker of the company. It’s….unfortunate…..but if it helps the company to survive and to strive towards new heights….then, why not?”

PNB continues to maintain his interest because he is allowed to experiment. He recently choreographed for senior pupils at the PNB School – a fully orchestrated piece for two couples, set to his own music, which he describes as “neo-classical, minimalist music.” Will he be choreographing more in the future? He would like to do more but it takes so much out of him. His reticence is hardly surprising since it seems that he was practically banging nails into the scenery himself for the production. “It had my name all across the work,” he laughs. One can imagine the programme for ‘Eclipse’ – ‘Choreographed by, directed by, staged by and designed by Stanko Milov with music by Stanko Milov.’ Is he maybe moving that way as his career progresses? “I feel very much [just] a dancer now but you have to be well-rounded. I cannot tell you exactly what I am going to do in the future but I am way too involved in dance to go in a different direction completely. I mean, I like all aspects of the [dance] business. I am fascinated by it.”

Milov doesn’t believe that he choreographs in a PNB style. In fact he is not convinced that PNB has a distinct style. “A lot of companies in America, and PNB is one of them, have been influenced by Balanchine, producing dancers with nice feet and legs. But other than that, I think PNB is a group of very good dancers and every single person has something to offer and not just a uniform style. Nowadays everyone comes from everywhere and the style is just to enjoy what you’re doing and give of your best.” It’s a recurring theme in the interview that Milov wants to give every performance his best shot and, mixing his metaphors somewhat, he wants to “please the audience to the end…till the last straw.” The audience is all important. Eventhough many of the UK critics panned the opening night performance of Stowell’s ‘Silver Lining’, Milov thought the night was a great success because from where ‘he’ was dancing, the audience was having a good time and that’s what counts the most. I wonder how much he really knows about the audience’s immediate response during a performance. “Are you kidding? I can feel it. That’s the most important thing. When the audience gives a good response you get energy. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why you’re dancing – to make the audience jump on their seats afterwards.” It is no surprise, then, that one of his great inspirations is that consummate crowd-pleaser, Irek Mukhamedov.

Unfortunately the critics in the audience were not jumping on their seats during ‘Silver Lining’ and certain critics (who shall remain nameless) did not even clap. But then those critics never do. He tries to be generous to the damned souls who do not clap – “audiences express themselves differently in different places” - but I pointed out that the critics and the rest of the audience frequently differ in their respective levels of appreciation of any one production. Milov is amazed that Nederlands Dance Theater received the same froideur in London from the critics. (He would have been proud of other members of the audience that were ‘almost’ jumping on their seats.) “Oh, they’re beautiful dancers and Lightfoot and Kylian are, well, geniuses. What didn’t they [the critics] like?” We really didn’t have time for me to expand on the topic. I was more interested in what dancers think of the critics. “It’s always interesting to read the opinion of a single person,” he tells me before returning to his favourite theme, the audience: “but I know that does not represent everybody. I think a dancer should just concentrate on doing his best and to try to entice as many people in the audience as he can.” He admits that reviews can help the company: someone might be drawn to see a production they might not otherwise have known about if they read something interesting in the newspaper. Does that mean that there is, in his opinion, a duty on critics to write positively to bring audiences into the auditorium? “There has to be some kind of connection between what you guys write and what we do on stage because it is very much about sponsorship. You guys have the right to say whatever you want though. But it has to be backed up by the facts. Why do you hate it? You cannot just say it is horrible – that is not, in fact, a review.” Milov thinks that the choreographers, because they are artists trying to communicate their vision to the audience, are unlikely to be swayed by the negative opinions of critics. Their vision is their vision!

Picking up on the sponsorship theme, I asked whether the poor opening reviews for PNB in London would, in fact, register with another important sector of the audience, the sponsors. Could the reviews cause a problem for PNB raising money for future tours? Milov thinks the poor reviews will make the task of introducing potential new sponsors a good deal more difficult. “It’s going to be much harder to convince them to watch the [video] tape. So it’s important for you guys to support the companies that come here. That helps them in the future with their PR and marketing.” When I interview Milov we have not had round 2 of the reviews – those for the mixed programme. It seems that our reputation in the UK precedes us, since Milov believes that: “in Europe people like the full-length ballets. It takes time for people to get used to, to find excitement in, a short piece ie to find excitement in the energy of the dance rather than just in specific steps and the technical aspects of the piece.”

A touring week is a tough week for any dancer, with classes and rehearsals crammed into each day before the evening’s performance. Margo Spellman soon appeared to whisk Milov backstage to rehearse that evening’s excerpt pas de deux from ‘Le Corsiare’ and, as I watched his long legs stride away, I speculated that he would have to circle the stage at least twice as many times as the Kirov’s Farouk Ruzimatov in order to notch up the same number of jumps.

It took some time to track down Stanko Milov. I was wandering around the warren of corridors backstage at Sadler’s Wells Theatre asking anyone who might conceivably be connected with Pacific Northwest Ballet about the principal dancer's whereabouts. Company members wondered how I had managed to miss him at the end of morning class. Milov is statuesque – well over six feet tall – and, according to Margo Spellman, PNB’s Marketing and PR Director, you definitely know when it is him coming down the corridor. It’s hard to walk quietly when you weigh two hundred pounds, he has told her. Any fears that he was avoiding me quickly dispersed when I finally collided with the dancer. He has the charm and looks of an aristocratic Bulgarian – square jaw, high cheek bones and proud bearing – and the openness and affability of your average American. Deliciously glistening with post-class perspiration, he submitted willingly to my line of questioning.

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